"Whir" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... shoulders, when (after giving just a preparatory balance or two) they fly up to the counter and perch there for a minute, hop down again, and affectionately kiss the other young ladies, and say, "Good-by, dears! We shall meet again la haut." And then with a whir of their deliciously scented wings, away they fly for good, whisking over the trees of Brobdingnag Square, and up into the sky, as the ...
— A Little Dinner at Timmins's • William Makepeace Thackeray
... lip, seemed to indicate, in spite of his strength and color, some pulmonary weakness. He, however, rose after a moment's rest with undiminished energy and cheerfulness, readjusted his knapsack, and began to lightly pick his way across the fallen timber. A few paces on, the muffled whir of machinery became more audible, with the lazy, monotonous command of "Gee thar," from some unseen ox-driver. Presently, the slow, deliberately-swaying heads of a team of oxen emerged from the bushes, followed by the clanking chain of the "skids" of sawn planks, which they were ...
— A Phyllis of the Sierras • Bret Harte
... room, and said comprehensively, "Burning Daylight's on the tear." And the men who entered remained, and kept the barkeepers busy. The gamblers took heart of life, and soon the tables were filled, the click of chips and whir of the roulette-ball rising monotonously and imperiously above the hoarse rumble of men's voices and their oaths and ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... whir of each new machine Thinner is growing the veil between The visible earth and the ...
— Poems of Progress • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... breaking our rear in this way, for our men fell into confusion, the horses and mules plunging and trying to break away. There were now men leaning on their elbows, blood dripping from their mouths. There were cries, sounding far away, inconsequent to us still standing. The whir of many arrows came, and we could hear them chuck into the woodwork of the wagons, into the leather of saddle and harness, and now and again into something that gave out ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough
... the meaning he so plainly implied, but she was perfectly content with the explanation, and sat there dreamily, expecting to hear the reassuring whir of the motor at any moment. But the minutes dragged themselves out, and the only sound that came from the engine was the tapping of the tools Bates was ...
— A Campfire Girl's Happiness • Jane L. Stewart
... the window frame, Marcia closed her eyes. There was still the illusion of a purr about her. Probably because, as her kitten warmed in its circle, its coziness began to whir mountingly. The September afternoon was full of drone. The roofs of the city from Hattie's kitchen window, which overlooked Morningside Heights, lay flat as slaps. Tranced, indoor quiet. Presently Hattie began to tiptoe. The seventy-two jars were ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... the blanket of night, through which no sound from her could have reached the shore. There was little sound, and none agreeable save the whir of the ship's sewing machine at which Smee sat, ever industrious and obliging, the essence of the commonplace, pathetic Smee. I know not why he was so infinitely pathetic, unless it were because he was so pathetically unaware of it; but even strong men had to turn hastily from looking at him, ...
— Peter and Wendy • James Matthew Barrie
... throw fire-balls, or know about them. They were made of cotton rags wound tight and sewed, and then soaked in turpentine. When a ball was lighted a boy caught it quickly up, and threw it, and it made a splendid streaming blaze through the air, and a thrilling whir as it flew. A boy had to be very nimble not to get burned, and a great many boys dropped the ball for every boy that threw it. I am not ready to say why these fire-balls did not set the Boy's Town on ...
— A Boy's Town • W. D. Howells
... weak Clamour rings in his sad ear; And noise so slight it would surpass Credence:—drinking sound of grass, Worm-talk, clashing jaws of moth Chumbling holes in cloth: The groan of ants who undertake Gigantic loads for honour's sake— Their sinews creak, their breath comes thin: Whir of spiders when they spin, And minute whispering, mumbling, sighs Of idle grubs and flies. This man is quickened so with grief, He wanders god-like or like thief Inside and out, below, above, ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various
... cold darkness of eternity he sits, this god who has grown old. His rounded eyes are open on the whir of time, but man who made ...
— Profiles from China • Eunice Tietjens
... magnificent. Great beeches and hickories were mingled with the willows and live oaks and cypresses, and the foliage was thick, green, and beautiful. The birds seemed innumerable, and now and then flocks of wild fowl rose with a whir from the creek's edge. Keen, penetrating odors of forest and wild flower came to ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler
... the chariot sprang to earth That glorious man: he swung the long spear up. But in his brawny hand his foe hath seized A monstrous stone: full at the golden shield Of Neoptolemus he sped its flight; But, no whir staggered by its whirlwind rush, He like a giant mountain-foreland stood Which all the banded fury of river-floods Can stir not, rooted in the eternal hills; So stood unshaken still Achilles' son. Yet not for this Eurypylus' dauntless might ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus
... a few minutes after the last dinner guest has departed, his chauffeur will drive him some twenty miles to a much simpler abode on a secluded dirt road. Here, he really lives. Whistling tree toads replace the constant whir ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley
... not good—that is enough; I pry no farther—that is not the way. Here, O my potter, is thy making stuff! Set thy wheel going; let it whir and play. The chips in me, the stones, the straws, the sand, Cast them out with fine separating hand, And make a vessel of ...
— A Book of Strife in the Form of The Diary of an Old Soul • George MacDonald
... over the city every day, and at night you can see their lights moving overhead in the darkness. Sometimes they fly so low that you can hear the whir of their engines. For the moment you don't know if they're ...
— Trapped in 'Black Russia' - Letters June-November 1915 • Ruth Pierce
... useful things of more account than pleasant ones? Hmm; most young ladies who have visited us have seemed afraid rather than pleased. The whir of the machinery ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... whir of machinery and the pounding of hammers, and he went over and peered through one of the windows. The building proved to be a furniture factory. Most of the work was being done by machines, but there were enough tasks left over to keep the owners of the parked cars busily occupied. The main ...
— The Servant Problem • Robert F. Young
... overgrown with turf and moss, and even with seedling shrubs; so he felt sure that this entrance was never used. The lane, he noted, swept away to the right toward Issy and not toward the Clamart road. He heard, as he stood there, the whir of a tram from far away at the left, a tram bound to or from Clamart, and the sound brought to his mind what he wished to do. He turned about and began to make his way round the rose-gardens, which ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... voices rose to a sawing like the shrill whir of wood being cut by machinery.... A derisive laugh broke into the strange sound. It was Fraulein Pfaff's laughter and was followed by her voice thinner and shriller and higher than the other. Miriam listened. ...
— Pointed Roofs - Pilgrimage, Volume 1 • Dorothy Richardson
... obstacles to our awkward and incumbered pedestrianism. The woods were largely pine, though yellow birch, beech and maple were common. The satisfaction of having a gun, should any game show itself, was the chief compensation to those of us who were thus burdened. A partridge would occasionally whir up before us, or a red squirrel snicker and hasten to his den; else the woods appeared quite tenantless. The most noted object was a mammoth pine, apparently the last of a great race, which presided over a cluster of yellow birches, on ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... ever-increasing confusion and whir, and nothingness, till some time or other there was a fresh coming of the dawn, in the midst of which he felt something that seemed wonderfully cool and moist laid upon his head, and a voice that seemed to come from miles ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... by enterprise and industry. The fertile prairies of the far West not only supply the inhabitants of the Eastern States with food, but they export large quantities of meat and of grain. The workshops and factories resound with the whir of wheels and the hum of well-paid labor, which, in turn, furnishes a market for agricultural and horticultural products. There has been of late a fomentation of ill-feeling and jealously between classes dependent upon each other, and both equally ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... ejaculation.) "Come in! come in!" And in a second more a vision, it seemed to the dazed Donald,—but it was not a vision at all, only a buxom young girl in a blue homespun gown,—had seized him with one hand and Katie with the other, and drawn them both into the room, into the general whir and melee of wheels, merry faces, and still ...
— Between Whiles • Helen Hunt Jackson
... never got to London. Crash and whir of battle, and when the smoke cleared, there were the gallant Highland clansmen scattered, and the sturdy English nobles, and the bonny Irish gentlemen. And ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... to hide it, her fingers thrust the card back inside its envelope. And she was tucking it away in its warm hiding place within the scant fullness of the white blouse when the clock on the wall behind her began to beat out the hour with a noisy whir of loosened cogs. ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans
... here, where an old man is patiently knitting a flat web of ten inches with a series of five motions between the rows of stitches, while just by are the circular machines, whose motions are so rapid that the clicks of the needles merge into a whir, and a man is able to attend to six machines, making one hundred and thirty pounds of knitted goods ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various
... at a funeral with a real character of the deceased, instead of that Mrs. Grundyfied view of him which the clergyman is so painfully elaborating in his prayer? Remove the pendulum of conventional routine, and the mental machinery runs on with a whir that gives a delightful excitement to sluggish temperaments, and is, perhaps, the natural relief of highly nervous organizations. The tyrant Will is dethroned, and the sceptre snatched by his frolic sister Whim. This state of things, if continued, must become ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... when the two girls were working over their sewing-machines, the whir of the numerous machines filling the great warehouse, Agnes ...
— Sue, A Little Heroine • L. T. Meade
... produced a small pasteboard box which he opened guardedly, mindful of the numberless bright little eyes that were watching every move. All about him now sounded the whir and flutter of wings, the cooing of doves, the saucy twitter of the sparrows. Sir Lancelot, alert and eager, occupied one arm of the wheel chair. Another bushy-tailed little fellow, less venturesome, sat back on his haunches ...
— Pollyanna Grows Up • Eleanor H. Porter
... He pranced sideways a little and shook his head up and down in an effort to regain his former temper, but that iron hand kept his nose down, now, and that quiet voice sounded above him—no cursing, no raking of sharp spurs to torture his tender flanks, no whir of the quirt, but a calm voice of authority and understanding. Red Pete broke into an easy canter and in this fashion they came up to Morgan in the road. Red Pete snorted and started to shy, for he recognized the clumsy, bouncing weight which had insulted his back not long before; ...
— The Untamed • Max Brand
... dipping about in the margin shallows, he either sets off with a rapid whir to some other feeding-ground up or down the stream, or alights on some half-submerged rock or snag out in the current, and immediately begins to nod and courtesy like a wren, turning his head from side to side with ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir
... locusts, whose shrill cries came from who could tell where—the tall swale-grass on the river edge, erect now again after the April floods, or the brown broom-corn nearer the road, or from the sky above? We could hear the squirrels' mocking chatter in the tree-tops, the whir of the kingfishers along the willow-fringed water—the indefinable chorus of Nature's myriad small children, all glad that spring was come. But above these our ears took in the ceaseless clang of the drums, and the sound of hundreds of armed men's feet, tramping in unison upon the road ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... saving love expressed through Jesus Christ; it will mean the transforming of human society so that ignorance, greed, disease and injustice shall be overthrown; so that "the bitter cry of the children" shall no longer be drowned by the whir of the wheels of industry; so that the sisterhood of women shall be established and that through the dominance of righteousness men shall cease to invoke war and strife, and, released from crushing burdens, into life and labor shall come joy and an ...
— Home Missions In Action • Edith H. Allen
... was silent for several moments. She seemed to be thinking. Louise's face was expressionless. She had made one attempt to check Wrayson, but recognizing its futility she had at once abandoned it. From below in the valley came the faint whir of the reaping machines, from the rose garden a murmur of bees. But between the two women and the man there was silence—silence which lasted so long that Monsieur Jules, who was watching from a window, called softly upon all the ...
— The Avenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... unfrightened as the electrodes were fastened to their skulls, entirely undisturbed by the whir of the machine. In less than an hour they were able to use the common language of the Federation. Another record; most ...
— Impact • Irving E. Cox
... them; but birds of varied plumage and song, and troops of squirrels, with footprints here and there of the grizzly bear, and a drove of wild turkeys, with red heads aloft, rushing over an eminence at our left as we approached, and an occasional whir of a rattlesnake at our feet, sufficiently indicated the kind of denizens by ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... hadn't realized how the time had been flying. But there was the sawmill. She could hear the whir and buzz! And there was the old livery-stable, and the place where farm implements were sold, and the little harness shop jammed in between;—and there, to convince her no mistake had been made, was the lozenge of grass with "Silvertree" on it in white stones. Then, in a second, ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... pretty near bother the life out of me. They creep in through the cracks and crannies and eat the grain. If I go over by the grain chest, the first thing I know, there's a whir, and a cloud of them darts up in front of my face. Sometimes it makes my heart come right up in my mouth. I wish there wasn't a whale ...
— Ben Comee - A Tale of Rogers's Rangers, 1758-59 • M. J. (Michael Joseph) Canavan
... The gin stopped its whir, and the clerk weighed the cotton. Religion watched him sharply, and counted the checks he ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... for that fate which rules the destiny of wild duck ordained that they should settle on the precise patch of water that was fully commanded by both sportsmen, and some three seconds later both guns spoke practically at the same instant, and up went the teal again with a great whir of wings and loud cries of consternation, leaving behind them a round dozen or more of dead and wounded floating upon the rippled ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood
... out of the black darkness ahead came a long-drawn, weird, clanging noise, growing louder and louder till it swept over their heads and into the distance, hushed, as it were, by the whir and whistle of the heavy pinions beating ...
— Steve Young • George Manville Fenn
... seconds the whir grew fainter, the gyrations stopped automatically. She wiped the blood from her face, and burst into hysterical weeping. The man, cursing horribly, rapped to find the spring that she must have pressed as she entered. It seemed to ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... had been continuing its smooth whir through fields, wooded lands, and queer, dead-and-alive little villages for some time before it drew up at last at a small station. Bereft by the season of its garden bloom and green creepers, it looked ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... as she returned to her kitchen, was: "Well, it was nearer than the battle. Perhaps next time—" She shrugged her shoulders, and we all laughed, and life went on as usual. Well, I've heard the whir-r of a German bomb, even if I did not see the ...
— On the Edge of the War Zone - From the Battle of the Marne to the Entrance of the Stars and Stripes • Mildred Aldrich
... delay. "Tom," says she "Tom Cringle, I have got tired of you, Thomas; besides, I hear my next door neighbour, Madame Adversity, tirling at the door pin; so give me my down bed, Tom, and I'm off." With that she bangs open the window, and before I recover from my surprise, launches forth, with a loud whir, mattrass and all, leaving me, Pilgarlic, lying on the paillasse. Well, her nest is scarcely cold, when in comes me Mistress Adversity, a wee outspoken sour crabbit gizzened anatomy of an old woman—"You ne'erdoweel, Tam," quoth she, "is it no enough that you ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... her, at all. When she got tired of the game at last, she rose from almost under my hand and flew aloft with the rush and whir of a shell and lit on the highest limb of a great tree and sat down and crossed her legs and smiled down at me, and seemed gratified to see ...
— The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... rushes through the trees and fans the traveller's opened pores. With a sudden, startling whir, mounting with their hearts, a bird flushes from the ...
— Walking-Stick Papers • Robert Cortes Holliday
... From all about arose the clacking whir of manure- spreaders. In the distance, on the low, easy-sloping hills, he saw team after team, and many teams, three to a team abreast, what he knew were his Shire mares, drawing the plows back and forth across, contour-plowing, turning the green sod of the hillsides to the rich dark brown ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... aim. As he pulled the lanyard, the little bronze cannon spit out fire viciously, and the long projectile, to which had been attached the end of the coiled line, sailed off on its errand of mercy. With a whir the line spun out of the box coil after coil, while the crew peered out over the breaking seas to see if the keeper's aim was true. At last the line stopped uncoiling and the life-savers knew that ...
— Stories of Inventors - The Adventures Of Inventors And Engineers • Russell Doubleday
... Holroyd maltreated him, Azuma-zi went presently to the Lord of the Dynamos and whispered, "Thou seest, O my Lord!" and the angry whir of the machinery seemed to answer him. Thereafter it appeared to him that whenever Holroyd came into the shed a different note came into the sounds of the dynamo. "My Lord bides his time," said Azuma-zi to himself. "The iniquity of the fool is not yet ripe." ...
— The Door in the Wall And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... approach, at a signal from the mother, as if a whirlwind had swept them away, and they so exactly resemble the dried leaves and twigs that many a traveler has placed his foot in the midst of a brood, and heard the whir of the old bird as she flew off, and her anxious calls and mewing, or seen her trail her wings to attract his attention, without suspecting their neighborhood. The parent will sometimes roll and spin round before you ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... at my shoulder and the trigger drawn; before I heard the crack I saw him cringe; and, as the white smoke drifted off to leeward, he fell heavily, completely riddled by the shot, into the brake before me; while at the same moment, whir-r-r! up sprung a bevy of twenty quail, at least, startling me for the moment by the thick whirring of their wings, and skirring over the underwood right toward Archer. "Mark, quail!" I shouted, and, recovering instantly my nerves, fired my one remaining ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... her father had retired with a bounce she remained alone in the gymnasium, eyes downcast, lips quivering. Later still, sitting in precisely the same position, she heard the soft whir of the touring car outside; then the click of ...
— The Green Mouse • Robert W. Chambers
... amazement. His automobile, his wonderful, beautiful, clashing, dashing automobile unrepairable! It was impossible. But a quarter of an hour's demonstration by the foreman convinced him. The car was dead. The engine would never whir again. All the petrol in the world would not stimulate her into life. Never again would he sit behind that wheel rejoicing in the insolence of speed. The car, which, in spite of her manifold infirmities, he had fondly imagined to be immortal, ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... had noticed him leave the room, no one knew where he was. A party went in search of him. The others, too unnerved to go back into the ball-room, crowded outside the door and listened. They could hear the steady whir of the wheels upon the polished floor as the thing spun round and round; the dull thud as every now and again it dashed itself and its burden against some opposing object and ricocheted off in ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... during the twelvemonth to twice its floor space, the business day waned and died; in the workrooms the whir of machines sank into the quiet maw of darkness; in the showrooms the shower lights, all but a single cluster, blinked out. Alphonse Michelson slid into a tan, rain-proof coat, turning up the ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst
... my heels; yet I did not turn to see what pursued me, for I was intent upon reaching my father. Suddenly like thunder an angry voice shouted curses and threats into my ear! A rough hand wrenched my shoulder and took the meat from me! I stopped struggling to run. A deafening whir filled my head. The moon and stars began to move. Now the white prairie was sky, and the stars lay under my feet. Now again they were turning. At last the starry blue rose up into place. The noise in my ears ...
— American Indian stories • Zitkala-Sa
... arms, two legs, a whole face with eyes, nose, mouth, chin, and ears, complete. He could see, for he had glanced about him as he dressed. He could speak, for he sang loudly. He could hear, for he had turned quickly at the whir of pigeon-wings behind him. His skin was smooth all over, and nowhere on it were the dark scarlet maps which the child found so interesting on the arms, face, and breast of the burned man. He did not strangle every little while, or shiver madly, and scream at ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... came on a visit. Aunt Emma was much older than Mother. She was going abroad to be a governess. She was very busy getting her clothes ready, and they were very ugly, dingy clothes, and she had them always littering about, and the sewing-machine seemed to whir—on and on all day and most of the night. Aunt Emma believed in keeping children in their proper places. And they more than returned the compliment. Their idea of Aunt Emma's proper place was anywhere where they were not. So they saw very little of her. ...
— The Railway Children • E. Nesbit
... Even now, as I sit on this trunk waiting for the hour of departure, I have a foretaste of the joy of being away from the insidious cries of hawkers, the tormenting bells of the rag-man, the incessant howling of children, the rumbling of carts and wagons, the malicious whir of cable cars, the grum shrieks of ferry boats, and the thundering, reverberating, smoking, choking, blinding abomination of an elevated railway. A musician might extract some harmony from this chaos of noises, ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... start the reflector rotating." There was a faint whir, and the mirror was spinning smoothly, still with only a slightly blurred image of myself. "Listen, now," continued van Manderpootz. "Here is what you are to do. You will think of a generic noun. 'House,' for instance. If you think of house, you will see, not an individual house, but ...
— The Ideal • Stanley Grauman Weinbaum
... underbody colloid, swings the heavy pithing-iron out of its rack which in liners is generally cased as a settee, and at two hundred feet releases the catch. We hear the whir of the crescent-shaped arms opening as they descend. The derelict's forehead is punched in, starred across, and rent diagonally. She falls stern first, our beam upon her; slides like a lost soul down that pitiless ladder of light, and ...
— With The Night Mail - A Story of 2000 A.D. (Together with extracts from the - comtemporary magazine in which it appeared) • Rudyard Kipling
... hour later a whir-r and a single note. "Half-past five," I said to myself. "Will Peter never find that mistake?" Once during the long wait the night watchman shifted his leg—he was on the other side of the stove—and once Peter reached up above his head for a pile ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... the darkness, came something that moved on a whir of caterpillar treads. Something hard and metallic slammed against Mike's shoulder, spinning him against ...
— Unwise Child • Gordon Randall Garrett
... his shoulder. His fingers sought the trigger. Cautiously he thrust it through the bars of the gate. Bending down, he took a long and deliberate aim. The fates seemed to be on his side. Rochester suddenly stiffened into attention, his gun came to his shoulder, as with a loud whir a pheasant flew out of the wood before him. The two reports rang out almost simultaneously. The pheasant dropped to the ground like a stone. Rochester's arms went up to the skies. He gave a little cry and fell over, a ...
— The Moving Finger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... patiently to await the night and the time for action. The tiny encampment was hidden from them by the thick boughs, but through the screen of delicate, aromatic leaves they could see the bridge of rock. Around them was the stir and murmur of the summer afternoon—the wind in the trees, the whir of insects, the song of birds, the babble of the water—but far above, where the great arch cut the sky, the world seemed asleep. The trees dreamed, resting against the crimson and gold of the heavens. The Indian's appreciation of the wonders of nature was limited—with ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... loud jangling whir of a telephone bell from the adjoining room cut into the air, drowning out conversation; and it rang on and on and on as though Central had ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... king, with all his new chivalry around him, dashed down the narrow valley—the white standard of France on one side of him, his keen-eyed little son on the other—and began to deploy the whole advance battalion, preliminary to a grand charge—whiz! whiz! whir! whir! from both sides came the arrows, as thick as hail and as terrible as javelins, from the hidden archers. The astonished Frenchmen fell back. That crowded still more those who were yet wedged in the ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... moss-covered, that led to Middle Patent. So, he ran at right angles until he also reached it, and as now he was close to where it entered the main road, he approached warily. But, he was too late. There was a sound like the whir of a rising partridge, and ahead of him from where it had been hidden, a gray touring-car leaped into the highway. The stranger was at the wheel. Throwing behind it a cloud of dust, the car raced toward Greenwich. Jimmie had time to note only that it bore a Connecticut ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... so eager to have him go on that she had forgotten all about being afraid of him. "And when they whir up from the road, sir, ...
— Little Busybodies - The Life of Crickets, Ants, Bees, Beetles, and Other Busybodies • Jeanette Augustus Marks and Julia Moody
... and the road went overboard in a long, steep cascade. She pushed out the clutch and coasted. The whir of the engine stopped. ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... ran round and up And down the height, most like the whir of wings Through tangled trees of forests old and dim. A moment thus—the time a crisped leaf, Held, armlength overhead, will take to fall— And then a man was sitting face ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... multitude. Expresses, panting with as much impatience as the disciplined English expresses ever suffer themselves to show, await them in the stations, which are effectively parts of the great hotels, and whir away to London with them as soon as they can drive up from the steamer; but many remain to rest, to get the sea out of their heads and legs, and to prepare their spirits for adjustment to the novel conditions. These the successive trains ...
— Seven English Cities • W. D. Howells
... to him, but he has a good, strong, native speech, nevertheless. How much character there is in it! How much thrift and independence! Of course his plumage is firm, his color decided, his wit quick. He understands you at once and tells you so; so does the hawk by his scornful, defiant whir-r-r-r-r. Hardy, happy outlaws, the crows, how I love them! Alert, social, republican, always able to look out for himself, not afraid of the cold and the snow, fishing when flesh is scarce, and stealing when other resources fail, the ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... booming "clumpety-clump! clumpety-clump!" of a stamp-mill on a shoulder of a hill high above the camp, drowned the whir and chirp of night insects, and from the second story of a house they passed they heard the crude banging of a piano, and a woman's strident voice wailing, "She may have seen better da-a-ys," with a mighty effort to ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... a terrific whir the propeller flashes round. The sound increases, and then decreases slightly, and increases again. The gadfly moves. Moves more rapidly. Skims along the ground. Rises, rises, rises. Ah, the beautiful river! Every time I have flown the beauty of that river catches ...
— Letters to Helen - Impressions of an Artist on the Western Front • Keith Henderson
... Sardinians of the guard, heavily armed, with bright helmets, broad round shields, quilted corselets, and long, heavy, two-edged swords. They range themselves on either side of the roadway, and stand like statues, waiting for the appearance of Pharaoh. There is a whir of chariot-wheels, and the royal chariot sweeps through the gateway, and sets off at a good round pace towards the temple. The spearmen in front start at the double, and the guardsmen, in spite of their heavy ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Ancient Egypt • James Baikie
... bending over some footprints beside a small field-piece that, dismounted and rusted, lay half buried in ashes, a sudden whir-r-r caused him to spring back as though he had received an electric shock. Only his quickness saved him from the living death held in the fangs of a rattlesnake that had evidently just crawled from the ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... "exercises" were supplemented by occasional "pieces"—simple, yet boasting a name. But when Penelope played "Down by the Mill," one heard only the notes—accurate, rhythmic, an excellent imitation; when Hester played it, one might catch the whir of the wheel, the swish of the foaming brook, and almost the spicy smell of the sawdust, so vividly was ...
— The Tangled Threads • Eleanor H. Porter
... confronted. Richard did not speak, but deliberately reached out his left hand, which he caught securely into Bittridge's collar; then he began to beat him with the cowhide wherever he could strike his writhing and twisting shape. Neither uttered a word, and except for the whir of the cowhide in the air, and the rasping sound of its arrest upon the body of Bittridge, the thing was done in perfect silence. The witnesses stood well back in a daze, from which they recovered when Richard released Bittridge ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... at Drake Hill both as to men and women folk. The fields were full of ebony backs and plying arms of toil at sunrise, and the hum and whir of loom and spinning-wheels were to be heard in the negro cabins and the great house as soon ...
— The Heart's Highway - A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeeth Century • Mary E. Wilkins
... rose with cry and clamor, With a whir and beat of pinions, Rose up from the reedy Islands, From the water-flags and lilies. And they said to Pau-Puk-Keewis: "In your flying, look not downward, Take good heed and look not downward, Lest some strange mischance should happen, Lest some ...
— The Song Of Hiawatha • Henry W. Longfellow
... haven't a notion how it's done." "What will you give me if I spin it for you?" asked the manikin. "My necklace," replied the girl. The little man took the necklace, sat himself down at the wheel, and whir, whir, whir, the wheel went round three times, and the bobbin was full. Then he put on another, and whir, whir, whir, the wheel went round three times, and the second too was full; and so it went on till the morning, when all the straw was spun away, and all the ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... voice died away, and simultaneously the three dignitaries, who seemed to be officiating priests, from their solemn gestures, stepped backward, passing beneath the protruding arms of the idols. There sounded the deep whir of some mechanism somewhere, and the same invisible force that had Jim and his two companions in its control suddenly began to agitate ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, May, 1930 • Various
... to one of the long windows, which she unbolted and flung open, expecting to hear the shrill whir of the burglar-alarm, which, every night, ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... knows how to take care of himself, and to find both food and shelter in the evergreens, when the snow lies fresh upon the ground. There, in some sunny glade among the pines, he will ensconce himself in the thickest branches, and whir off as you come near, sailing down the opening with his body ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... always the chug-chug-chug of the gleaming, fierce-eyed motor cars filled one's ears. They darted past, flaming scarlet, somber olive, and livid white; a crouching, masked figure intent at the wheel, veiled, shapeless women behind, a whir of dust to show where they had been ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... notwithstanding his usual good fortune, Capt. Barold was doomed this morning to make remarks of a nature objectionable to his revered relation. On their way they passed Mr. Burmistone's mill, which was at work in all its vigor, with a whir and buzz of machinery, and a slight odor of oil in its ...
— A Fair Barbarian • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... machine, her tongue clattering an unwearied accompaniment to the whir of the wheel, as Mrs. Donovan ...
— Mary Rose of Mifflin • Frances R. Sterrett
... broad as many an English river, but so small here that it scarcely has a name; now catch hasty glimpses of a distant town, with its clean white houses and their cool piazzas, its prim New England church and school-house; when whir-r-r-r! almost before you have seen them, comes the same dark screen: the stunted trees, the stumps, the logs, the stagnant water - all so like the last that you seem to have been transported back again ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... as much interested in Mr. Schwab's answer as Winthrop, leaned forward. Winthrop raised his voice above the whir of flying wheels, the rushing ...
— The Scarlet Car • Richard Harding Davis
... out of her cradle; then their wings went "whir-r-r, whir-r-r"—you 've heard a green fly buzzing against a window-pane, have n't you? That was the kind of whirring noise the Dream-Fairies' wings made, with the pleasing difference that the Dream-Fairies' wings produced a soft, soothing music. The cricket under the honeysuckle ...
— Second Book of Tales • Eugene Field
... Buz-z-z-z! whir-r-r! He was back in the wheat-stack once more, listening to the dull humming of ten thousand bluebottles. From without came the sound of heavy tramping feet, whirring wheels, rough, human voices. The wheaten mass rocked and vibrated above ...
— "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" - Studies of Animal life and Character • Douglas English
... the odor of new-mown grass and the breath of wild strawberries that had fallen under the sickle, to make the sweet hay sweeter with their crimson juices. The whir of the scythes and the clatter of the mowing machine came from the distant meadows. Field mice and ground sparrows were aware that it probably was all up with their little summer residences, for haying time was at its height, and the Giant, mounted on the Avenging ...
— Timothy's Quest - A Story for Anybody, Young or Old, Who Cares to Read It • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... they heard a faint whir; the ventilator machinery had started. This drew air in from outside, and pumped it up to the necessary pressure for breathing in the ship, no matter what the external pressure might be. There was a larger pump attached similarly to each of the engines to supply it with ...
— The Black Star Passes • John W Campbell
... Soon I could see people going about the streets and laundry-maids hanging out the family washing in the back gardens. I even came low enough to witness a minor household tragedy—a mother vigorously spanking a small boy. Hearing the whir of my motor, she stopped in the midst of the process, whereupon the youngster very naturally took advantage of his opportunity to cut and run for it. Drew doubted my veracity when I told him about this. He called me an ...
— High Adventure - A Narrative of Air Fighting in France • James Norman Hall
... no little difficulty. My cork came up in the back water under the rock on which I stood, and there, almost at my very feet, it disappeared. I could not believe that a bass had taken it, but all doubt on the subject was dispelled by the shrill whir of my reel as the fine silk line spun out at a tremendous rate. The fish had darted across the current, and only stopped after he had taken out over two hundred ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... in travel now took more people where they could see for themselves the beauty of nature. In the new poetry we consequently find more definiteness. We can hear the whir of the partridge, the chatter of magpies, the whistle of the quail. Poets speak of a tree not only in general terms, but they note also the differences in the shade of the green of the leaves and the peculiarities of the bark. Previous to ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... there hain't a stir. Less it's a night-hawk's sudden whir, Or cottonwoods a-whisperin while The red moon smiles a lovin' smile. An' there I set an' hold her hand So glad I jes can't understand The reason of it all, or see Why all the world looks good to me; Or why I sees in it heap more Of beauty ...
— Songs of the Cattle Trail and Cow Camp • Various
... that nothing is happening because you do not see yourself grow, or hear the whir of the machinery. All great things grow noiselessly. You can see a mushroom grow, but never a child. Paul said for the comforting of all slowly perfecting souls that they grew "from character to character." "The inward man," he says elsewhere, "is renewed from day to day." ...
— Addresses • Henry Drummond
... at the little station and hunted our way up, making great sweeps and jogs, as hunters must, to take in certain spots we thought promising—certain ravines and swamp edges where we are always sure of hearing the thunderous whir of partridge wings, or the soft, shrill whistle of woodcock. At noon we broiled chops and rested in the lee of the wood edge, where, even in the late fall, one can usually find spots that are warm and still. It was dusk by the time we came ...
— More Jonathan Papers • Elisabeth Woodbridge
... reached the lowest floor and the press rooms were a whir of noise and clatter. As the three entered, the hum of the machinery rendered ...
— Paul and the Printing Press • Sara Ware Bassett
... whir of wings, and what Sudden drench of dews upon The young brows, wreathed, all unsought, With the apple-blossom garlands Of the poets of those far lands Whence all dreams are drawn Set herein and soiling not The Book ...
— The Book of Joyous Children • James Whitcomb Riley
... flies. There were crowds of them, but they did not attack human beings. You might sit on a bank in the fields with endless insects passing without being irritated; but everywhere out of doors you must listen for the peculiar low whir of the stoat-fly, who will fill his long grey body with your blood in a very few minutes. This is ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... quite forgotten. There was a lolling trailing grace about the lifted length, the head slightly inclined to us, the hood but partly spread—something winged in the undulation, a suggestion of that which we could not see, faintly like the whir of a humming bird's wings. That is it—an intimation of forces we had not senses to register—also colours and sounds! . . . My hand was lost in the great hand. My uncle did not turn back. He was speaking. There was that about ...
— Son of Power • Will Levington Comfort and Zamin Ki Dost
... holding up that scabbard and handle before him, while Rodriguez held the bare sword. And so they came to a room lit by the flare of one candle, which their guide told them the Professor had prepared for his guest. In the vastness of it was a great bed. Shadows and a whir as of wings passed out of the door as they entered. "Bats," said the ancient guide. But Morano believed he had routed powers of evil with the handle of his frying-pan and his master's scabbard. Who could say what they were in such a house, where bats and evil spirits sheltered ...
— Don Rodriguez - Chronicles of Shadow Valley • Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Baron, Dunsany
... deities, avid of Is-ness, Resurge from the Flivvers that Were, While the wild Chaotical Whizness Gives place to a Cosmic Whir, ...
— Hermione and Her Little Group of Serious Thinkers • Don Marquis
... seed-plots when it rained, pitting their surface all over as with pock-marks, till Melbury declared that gardens in such a place were no good at all. The two trees that had creaked all the winter left off creaking, the whir of the night-jar, however, forming a very satisfactory continuation of uncanny music from that quarter. Except at mid-day the sun was not seen complete by the Hintock people, but rather in the form of numerous little stars staring through ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... that too; look upon me earnestly, And move not any ways your eyes from this place, This Button here? pow, whir, whiss, shake your pockets. ...
— Beggars Bush - From the Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher (Vol. 2 of 10) • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... verse, Or to this presence could rehearse The sights and voices ravishing The boy knew on the hills in spring, When pacing through the oaks he heard Sharp queries of the sentry-bird, The heavy grouse's sudden whir, The rattle of the ...
— A Village Stradivarius • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... holding Ben Bow by the bridle, the old horse reared, plunged violently, snapped his halter, and broke away. The boy, at the same instant, was hurled to the ground. The ringing of hoofs and whir of wheels made strange sensations in his ears. He thought what a fool he was to be knocked ...
— A Lost Hero • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward and Herbert D. Ward
... could find words to reply she gathered up her cloak and ran. Before I could determine whether or not to follow her (for her words had aroused anew all my worst suspicions) she had disappeared! I heard the whir of a restarted motor at no great distance, and, in the instant that Nayland Smith came running down the steps, I knew that I ...
— The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... But I was curious to know where the doolies had gone. I got out of bed and looked into the darkness. There was never a sign of a doolie. Just as I was getting into bed again, I heard, in the next room, the sound that no man in his senses can possibly mistake—the whir of a billiard ball down the length of the slates when the striker is stringing for break. No other sound is like it. A minute afterward there was another whir, and I got into bed. I was not frightened—indeed I was not. I was very curious to know what had ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... of the morning has given place to a silence broken only by the shrill whir of the locust. The distant shore lines that ran clear and white against the low background of green have become dim and indistinct; all things are touched by a soft haze which changes the sentiment of the landscape from movement to repose, ...
— Under the Trees and Elsewhere • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... should quadruple the fitly trained teachers, the school sittings, the adequately equipped recreation centres and all incitements to higher uses of leisure time. The early years of every child should be held sacredly apart from the whir of wheels and the din of machinery; he should then rehearse in some degree, as will be later shown, the handicraft age of industry and its personalizing influence. His entrance into the world of modern labor should be not a plunge or a tumble but along a regulated highway of well-outlined ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer
... chirp of the crickets and the fretting of the aide-de-camp's horse outside the cottage could be heard. Then, like the grating of a coffee mill in a distant kitchen when one is just waking out of a sound sleep, they heard the faint, smothered whir of machinery, a sharper metallic ring of steel against steel followed by a gigantic detonation which shook the ground upon which the cottage stood and overthrew every glass upon the table. With a roar like the fall of a skyscraper the first ...
— The Man Who Rocked the Earth • Arthur Train
... clearly the way of chivalry—the task which was to be, as the Hindus say, the fruit of his birth.... Thus he would go down, face glowing with new and luminous resolves.... And once dawn was breaking as he descended, and the whir of wings aroused him. Looking upward he saw (as did Another of visions), in the red beauty of morning—a flock of swans flying off to ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... Whir! whir! whir! and a brood of half-grown partridges start up like an explosion, a few paces from me, and, scattering, disappear in the bushes on all sides. Let me sit down here behind the screen of ferns and briers, and hear this wild hen of the woods call together her brood. ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... round to bring up the loads of coal. The big yawning chasm, with the swinging steel rope, running away down into the great black hole, was awesome to look at, as the rope wriggled and swayed with its sinister movements; and the roar and whir of wheels, when the tables started, bewildered them. These crashed and roared and crunched and groaned; they would squeal and shriek as if in pain, then they would moan a little, as if gathering strength to break out in indignant protest; and finally, roar out in rebellious anger, giving ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh
... fly along. This deep gravity in childhood is peculiar to the East. What could that boy, standing on his lump of earth as a Stylites on his pillar, be thinking of? From time to time flocks of pigeons, busy feeding, flew off with a sudden whir as the train passed by, and alighted farther away on the plain; aquatic birds swam swiftly through the reeds that outstretched behind them, pretty wagtails hopped about, wagging their tails, on the crest of the levees; and in the heavens at a vast height, soared hawks, falcons, and gerfalcons, ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... whir-r!—a flash and away! A midget bejeweled mid flowers at play! A snip of a birdling, the blossom-bells' king, A waif of the sun-beams on quivering wing! O prince of the fairies, O pygmy of fire, Will nothing those brave little wings of yours tire? You follow the flowers from ...
— The California Birthday Book • Various
... dull whir and tiny clicking of the ball as it rebounded from the metal grooves struck across the tense stillness. As though this was the releasing signal, a roar of activity burst forth. Men all talked at once. The other tables and the bar were ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... anything at it myself, and thus pick up an additional dollar or two in the week. Of course, you would accomplish more than I could, and it would be a hundred times better than stitch! stitch! How I hate the whir of the thing!" And Bernard, with his juggler gift of mimicry, proceeded forthwith to turn himself into a sewing-machine, jerking his feet up and down in imitation of the motion of the treadle, and making an odd noise ...
— Apples, Ripe and Rosy, Sir • Mary Catherine Crowley
... the shadows on the Inyan-kara, and with the cool of evening his strength began to revive. Now he fought the ghost with renewed spirit, calling from time to time on his medicine-bat, till at last when all the shadows had merged and gone together, with a whir came the little brown bat, ...
— The Way of an Indian • Frederic Remington
... twig on the few unsevered tendons that have not yet felt the keen edge of the woodman's steel. See the first leaning it cannot recover. Hear the first cracking of the central vertebra; then the mournful, moaning whir in the air; then the tremendous crash upon the green earth; the vibration of the mighty trunk on the ground, like the writhing and tremor of an ox struck by the butcher's axe; the rebound into the air of dismembered branches; ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... poured his spirit and life more earnestly into the strain. And finally,—or else the sculptor's hope and imagination deceived him,—soft treads were audible upon the fallen leaves. There was a rustling among the shrubbery; a whir of wings, moreover, that hovered in the air. It may have been all an illusion; but Kenyon fancied that he could distinguish the stealthy, cat-like movement of some small forest citizen, and that ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... chair, awoke at the sound of high words. His jealous affection perceived at once that Malcolm was being insulted. He sprang to his feet, stepped swiftly to the wall, caught down his broadsword, and rushed to the door, making the huge weapon quiver and whir about his head as if it had been ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... disappeared amid the dark cypress-trees of the hunting park. The immense enclosure stretching from the edge of the morasses that bordered the walls of Babylon far into the country, soon echoed with the shouts of the attendants beating the coverts for game, the baying of the dogs, the hiss of lances and whir of arrows. Bright-hued birds, roused by the tumult, flew wildly hither and thither, now and then the superb plumage of a bird of paradise flashing like a jewel among the dense foliage of ...
— Our Boys - Entertaining Stories by Popular Authors • Various
... can make no sound as it rushes in the swift wing-beats. The whish of a duck's wings can be heard two or three hundred yards on a still night. The wings of an eagle rustle like silk in the wind as he mounts upward. A sparrow's wings flutter or whir as he changes his flight. Every one knows the startled rush of a quail or grouse. But no ear ever heard the passing of a great owl, spreading his five-foot wings in ...
— Ways of Wood Folk • William J. Long
... the tree overhead, or seen the figure of a small boy in a fantastic tunic of goatskins, slipping down the tree-trunk near Ranulph. As the company rose from the table the troubadour moved away a little, still thrumming his refrain, and in that moment there was a whir of sudden wings and the air was dark with pigeons. As the birds alighted Lady Philippa was surrounded by the pretty creatures, and in a graceful little speech Ranulph presented to her Peirol as a Faun, the Master of the Pigeons, who ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey
... Burt sprang through the intervening copsewood, and witnessed a scene that he never forgot, though he paused not a second in his horror. Even as he rushed toward her a huge rattlesnake was sending forth the "long, loud, stinging whir" which, as Dr. Holmes says, is "the dreadful sound that nothing which breathes can hear unmoved." Miss Hargrove was looking down upon it, stupefied, paralyzed with terror. Already the reptile was coiling its thick body for ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... and lookout, imported from Coldriver for the event, opened Brill's roulette layout in one corner, a game he usually operated himself on the occasions when his patrons chose to try their fortune against the bank. The rattle of chips, the whir of the ivory ball and the professional chant of lookout and croupier ...
— The Settling of the Sage • Hal G. Evarts
... money-getting, despise us; and yet our eyes are as yellow as their louis d'or. Stupid men that they are, they believe us good for nothing but to catch rats; we, the wise, the meditative, the independent, who have slept upon the prophet's sleeve, and lulled his ear with the whir of our mysterious wheel! Pass your hand over our backs full of electric sparkles—we allow you this liberty, and say to Charles Baudelaire that he must write a fine sonnet, ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume V (of X) • Various
... the rhythmic whir and the ensuing rattle of the little ivory ball at the roulette wheel, he did not disdain the quieter faro, playing that dignified game exclusively with the chocolate-coloured chips, which cost a thousand dollars a stack. Sometimes he ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... that my heart may not be sad. Spin and sing for my brother's sake, and the spinning makes me glad. Spin, sing with humming whir, the wheel goes round and round. For my brother's sake, the charm I'll break, Prince Hero shall be found. Spin, sing, the golden thread, Gleams in the sun's bright ray, The humming wheel my grief can heal, For love ...
— The Little Colonel's Hero • Annie Fellows Johnston
... strong Flemish accent. He was, he said, a mechanic, whose duty it was to care for the bells and the machinery. He had an assistant who went on duty at six o'clock. He served watches of eight hours. There came a "whir" from a fan above, and a tinkle from a small bell somewhere near at hand. He said that the half hour would strike in three minutes. Had I ever been in a bell tower when the chimes played? Yes? Then ...
— Vanished towers and chimes of Flanders • George Wharton Edwards
... Elizo; Marius, their elder son, a man over forty, who is the active manager of affairs; their younger son, Esperit, and their daughter Nanoun; and the wife of Marius, Janetoun, to whose skirts a small child was clinging while three or four larger children scampered about her in a whir of excitement over the imminent event by which Christmas really ...
— The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier
... The whir of a projection machine could be heard and on the screen before them leaped a picture of the paying teller's cage of the First National Bank. Winston's successor was standing motionless at the wicket, his lips parted in a smile, but the attention of all ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various
... like we can understand," the carter continued, by way of passing the time. "On'y foreign tongues used in the days of the Tower of Babel, when no two families spoke alike. They read that sort of thing as fast as a night-hawk will whir. 'Tis all learning there—nothing but learning, except religion. And that's learning too, for I never could understand it. Yes, 'tis a serious-minded place. Not but there's wenches in the streets o' nights... You know, I suppose, that they raise pa'sons there like radishes in a bed? ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... beat out its seconds with the same monotonous sound, and the finger crept towards the fateful hour. Then came the wheeze and whir preliminary to the strokes of four, conveying to familiar ears that only eight more minutes remained. At this warning Joseph arose from his seat, and, walking out into the graveyard, made direct to an eminence overlooking the long trend of road, and, raising one hand ...
— Lancashire Idylls (1898) • Marshall Mather
... you will come. I will call in if I may, and chat it over with you when you come home. We have not breakfasted yet. Goodbye!" There was a whir of wheels, and the yellow cloud rolled away down the road again. By some legerdemain the Admiral found that he was clutching in his right hand one of the obnoxious bills. He crumpled it up, and threw it ...
— Beyond the City • Arthur Conan Doyle
... qualifications like ancient champions, and then proceed to lay about with a will. Sometimes the maiden literature, queen of the tournament, will be slain instead of the Knight of Error, and often the spectators will be scratched by the whir of a sword. Nevertheless, the fight is in the open, we know the adversaries, and the final judgment, whether to salute a victor or condemn an impostor, ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby
... I reckon that'll be better," answered Udell; and soon the whir of the motor, and the stamp of the press filled ...
— That Printer of Udell's • Harold Bell Wright
... to the tireless whir of the machine, and looking out at the purpling range with tear-mist eyes. At last she said: "I shall never think of my father as a bad man, he was always so gentle ...
— Cavanaugh: Forest Ranger - A Romance of the Mountain West • Hamlin Garland
... summer moon All swollen to uncanny girth, And hanging, like the sun at noon, Above the center of the earth; But with a sad and sallow light, As it had sickened of the night And fallen in a pallid swoon. Around me I could hear the rush Of sullen winds, and feel the whir Of unseen wings apast me brush Like phantoms round a sepulcher; And, like a carpeting of plush,0 A lawn unrolled beneath my feet, Bespangled o'er with flowers as sweet To look upon as those that nod Within the ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... were tuning up their voices preparatory to the late-afternoon concert, soon to begin. They hummed a few bars of one melody, then of another; and at last, Angela's voice leading, there burst upon the room in full chorus, to the rhythmic whir of the wheels, the melodious music and maudlin stanzas of "The ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... now and then getting blocked and jammed together, and then, during ten seconds, one could not see them for the profanity, except vaguely and dimly. Every windlass connected with every forehatch from one end of that long array of steamboats to the other, was keeping up a deafening whiz and whir, lowering freight into the hold, and the half-naked crews of perspiring negroes that worked them were roaring such songs as 'De las' sack! De las' sack!!' inspired to unimaginable exaltation by the chaos of turmoil and racket that was driving everybody ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot |
